The Americans

Robert Frank's seminal series and photo book "The Americans" as been on my mind for awhile now. In light of our recent national holiday I thought this would be an appropriate time to share and discuss this specific body of work. Frank's photographs, taken on a 1955/1956 road trip through America chronicle the often banal and routine activities of his subjects. They have also been heralded as the one of the most important photographic events of the 1950s (the project of course would not have been possible without Frank receiving a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation).

Parade - Hoboken, New Jersey

During the two year period that Frank traveled he went to nearly 48 states and took 28,000 shots (83 of which ended up in the original publication). While the images featured in the book can certainly speak for themselves, they become all the more poetic when read in conjunction with Jack Kerouac's exquisite imagery and undulating prose. It seems that no matter how many times I read the opening line featured below I am flooded with images of America.

that crazy feeling in america when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral that's what robert frank has captured - jack kerouac

Funeral - St. Helena, South Carolina

While Frank's work brings forth a sense of nostalgia of what America once was, it also raises some interesting questions concerning the shifting focus of the so called 'cold war aesthetic.' After all, this was a time period when many artists began moving away from external forces (both political and social) and instead focused their energies on more personal quests. This trend is certainly exemplified in this series as Frank abandons the preconceived notions of documentary truth and social relevance. In it's place he captures his own personal, yet fragmented perception of the American people.

Rooming house - Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

Featured below are a few of my favorite images from the series and some of Kerouac's well chosen words. I hope you enjoy.

...the humor, the sadness, the EVERYTHING-ness and American-ness of these pictures! 

Rodeo - Detroit

...madroad driving men ahead - the mad road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space toward the horizon...

U.S. 285 -  New Mexico

 ...and the loneliest picture ever made, the urinals women never see, the shoeshine going on in sad eternity...

Men's room, railway station - Memphis, Tennessee

 ... love under the sky and in the womb of our universe...

Beaufort, South Carolina

 

... drain your basins in old Ohio... bring your Big Muddy rivers thru Kansas and the mudlands... punch lake holes in Florida and L.A., raise your cities in the white plain, cast your mountains up, bedawze the west, bedight the west... America - we're going home, going home...

Fourth of July - Jay, New York

*** all images and quoted text were gathered from Steidl's 2008 publication of Robert Frank's The Americans ***

Ellis Island

I was recently browsing through one of my favorite discussion boards "Vintage Photography" and stumbled across these great images from photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. Eisenstaedt, who worked for LIFE magazine is perhaps best known for his iconic photograph depicting the celebrations that occurred after the second world war. 

V-J Day Kiss in Times Square. New York, NY. 1945.

While this image has become synonymous with romance and victory, and has been reproduced on everything from calendars to coffee mugs, the photographs featured here and on LIFE's website depict a strikingly different reality. These rare images capture the bewilderment, confusion and exhaustion that was the first few moments on Ellis Island. 

Never Published. Ellis Island, 1950.

Antonio Magnani copes with his children and fat briefcase holding his entry papers. Ellis Island, 1950.

Taken in the 1950s these pictures depict the last few years of the island's operation as an immigration port. Because more than 100 million people passed through Ellis Island from 1892 to its closing in 1954, these images are especially poignant. If you've ever visited the site, you know first hand how cavernous the processing hall is and one can only imagine how drastically different it would feel teaming with tired and anxious newcomers. 

Photographer Uknown. The Great Hall. Ellis Island. 2012. [Image Source]

Photographer Uknown. The Great Hall. Ellis Island. 1900s. [Image Source]

While other photographers such as Lewis Hine showed the immigration process in a more formal and documentary style, Esenstaedt lent a certain sense of candidness to the composition. As typical of the time period, he steered away from frontal and formal portraits and instead focused on the smaller stories within the bigger picture. I especially love this moment of a very tired mother trying to calm her child. 

Never Published. Ellis Island. 1950.

Photographs and stories of the Ellis Island experience always seem to intrigue me. Perhaps it is the sense of hope so often conveyed in the images, or the idea that these families and individuals are on the threshold of a challenging yet fruitful beginning. Below I have included some of my favorite photographs from the series. It is also worth noting LIFE Magazine's article where the majority of these images and captions come from. As an added bonus to the photographs the spread also features pages from the original LIFE Magazine story. If you love old magazines and layouts as much as I do it is worth checking out. I also found this article to be a great synopsis of the work.

Twenty-four-year-old Schulim Pewzner, a rabbinical student from Warsaw, Poland. Ellis Island, 1950.

Never Published. Ellis Island. 1950.

Never Published. Ellis Island. 1950.

Never Published. On a ferry in New York Harbor, looking at lower Manhattan. 1950.

Maria Nadalin of Italy, seated at left of the table, is worked on by an inspector-stenographer-translator team... Ellis Island. 1950.

There are so many great images it was hard to only pick a few. What are some of your favorites?

***unless otherwise noted all images were taken by eisenstaedt and are courtesy of Time & Life Picture/Getty Images.***

New Visions

Today I came across an unexpected surprise. After an afternoon meeting in midtown I decided to stop by the Museum of Modern Art to check out a current exhibition.  My intention was to look at the Photography Department's annual "New Photography" show. I always anticipate this annual exhibition as the curatorial team at MoMA does an excellent job of pulling together a variety of relevant working photographers. While the work of the five artists featured - Michele Abeles, Birdhead comprised of Ji Weiyu and Song Tao, Anne Collier, Zoe Crosher and Shirana Shahbazi - was certainly compelling and interesting (see Birdhead's photo installation below) what I found to be the highlight of the trip was the adjoining exhibition "New Visions: Photography, Film and Photobook."

Birdheard. Image from The Song of Early Spring. 2012. Gelatin silver print. Image: 35 7/16 x 42 1/2″ (90 x 108 cm). Courtesy the artists and ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai. © 2012 Birdhead [Image Source]

I heard about this exhibition months ago and was never able to get up to MoMA to check it out.  Therefore, I was pleased that upon arrival I was greeted by rooms filled with early avant-garde photographs, films and photobooks. Here is a picture I ssnapped of the Rodchenko display, complete with his beloved (and one of my favorite) typefaces.

                                           

But it wasn't just the Rodchenko prints that were interesting. The curators made sure to include all the classics; portraits of Schlemmer's children by Maholy-nagy, Man Ray's experiments with light and of course El Lissitzky's famous self portrait, which serves as the signature image for the show.

El Lissitzky. Self-Portrait. 1924. [Image Source]

                    

However, what makes this show so appealing is that the photographs do not end with the obvious "New Vision" works but instead continue to tell the story of unique and unexpected viewpoints. The exhibition highlights more contemporary photographers such as Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Robert Heinecken and Philip-lorca Dicorcia. I found one of the most interesting although obvious connections to the new vision theme to be Martha Rosler's 1967-1972 series, "Bringing the War Home." Rosler, known for her social and political commentary uses photomontage (like so many other avant-garde artists featured in the show) to juxtapose images of ideal daily life with the horrors of war.

Martha Rosler. Hands Up / Makeup from the series Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful. 1967–1972. [Image Source]

While a more detailed discussion of photomontage and collage merits its own post, it is clear that combining unrelated imagery certainly creates a unique way of reading the subject. The exhibition will be on display through April of next year, so you have plenty of time to head over and check it out. I will likely visit the galleries again (perhaps on a quite winter morning) to continue my thoughts on new vision.

Why Photography

I am starting this blog as an attempt to keep myself rooted (and motivated) in my desire to write and curate on a professional level. Living in new york I am fortunate to experience a wide variety of artistic practices - but where my interests have always seemed to lead is toward the medium of photography.

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There is something enticing about photographs. Perhaps what appeals to me is that they not only seem to capture an exact moment, the corresponding emotion and the appropriate response, but they also expose the photographer's point of view. While photographs can be easily manipulated, either through the placement of subjects, props or technology, there continues to be an pseudo-inherent truth that permeates the image. Perhaps it is this idea of facticity that is rarely present but often assumed that I am trying to explore.

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Throughout this process I hope to not only discuss specific images and critics, but to also delve into my own thoughts on the rhetoric of photography through lectures and exhibitions that I attend and experience. And, of course I hope to share photographs that not only appeal to me aesthetically but also interest the reader and in turn provoke a larger discussion.