Robert Frank: The American

I am actual overdue for the reshoot for assignment 4. I got the tutor report on the 29th but I keep getting distracted by other things. Along all the excuses, here is one. My tutor recommends me to read Robert Frank's work "The American". I went over to the book store and found a Chinese version of the book. The book itself contains 83 photographs. It was a controversial work back in the 1950's that it was described as a "wart-covered… neurotic… a sad poem for sick people". However, there are also shares of admiration from other photographers. One of which described this works as "stunning, ground-trembling". So, which one is true?

Chinese preface. Anyone interested?

It happens that I have lived in America for many years. Due to school and work commitment, I have moved every couple years and have lived in four different states. So,  Robert Frank's work is not very surprising to me. It is consistent with what I have seen when I live there, even though the work is over 60 years old. Obviously, technology advances and many of the screens, the type of cars and the sign in the store in Robert Frank's work will be obsolete today, but the people are as confusing before as today.

One of the photographs that I found humours is a photograph of a black woman holding a white baby. It does not strike me about the photograph itself but the idea of taking such a photograph. If you take a photograph of something, it implies that you want to share this moment that speaks something to you, right? Race discrimination had been a long standing problem in American. Law against discrimination had passed many years ago, but for people to truly content with it, it takes more of a generation to forget what the grandpa said about the other race. On the surface, there is no discrimination in America, and there is no way there is any. However, when I was driving along in the suburb Chicago, my white friend told me that he feels uncomfortable to stop at the area that is predominately black. That was in 1997.

Of course, the America and the Americans have gone a long way since then. President Obama is a mixed race American. A lot of top athletes are black. New waves of immigrates comes from Asia. However, the most interesting part of American is that, it is a big melting pot. There are always new people coming in. The old mis-conception never quite dies out, while the new mis-conception will show up somewhere. It is so easy to find faults in the Americans to poke fun at. Someone, somewhere, decides that it is cool to burn a Koran a day (here), despite it is totally offensive to the Muslims. Someone, somewhere, thinks that it is a weekend family activity to go a protest next to a soldier's funeral (here) with obscene remarks. We are speaking in the 21 century. 

For Robert Frank’s work, I have seen something similar with my own eye. The part that is interesting to me is why he photographed this instead of anything else. There are other things happens in America, both good and bad. But why only this set of photographs are selected? I think it is quite obvious that he must be a foreigner, hoping that there is some unified personality for the "Americans", but only find out that exceptions are everywhere, and get disappointed. There was a book titled "The Nature of Photographs" written by Stephen Store. The book mentioned that a photograph can be viewed in three levels, and the last one is the mental level. Robert Frank's work is based on the "mental model" he had. Or, to phase it differently, he selected those works because he thought they worth to be photographed. Thus it says more about him than his work. 

So, what is "worthy" to photograph? What is so interesting about taking photograph of a common life that we go through day after day, to something that we are so familiar with that we almost ignored? Is it precisely we start to ignore it, it becomes part of our blind spot and thus, worthy to bring it out once more for discussion? Back in the 15, 16^th century, art works are created because the rich and powerful commission them to be made. Many Michelangelo’s work has a religious theme may or may not because he is a religious man, but the members of the churches commission him to do so. At 21^st century, if we were working for the press, only images that cause public sensation is really worthy (thus there is so much paparazzi). However, if we work for nobody and do photography as a hobby, what is left to judge what is worth apart from our own opinion? Then, what is left to judge if a piece of art work is good or bad if this is all up to our personal opinion? And is it why for the many degree show I have seen produced very low quality of work because amateur photography is essentially an art of talking to ourselves but never mind if it has any value to other people?

I suppose, someone will find me strange to say that I don't find Robert Frank's work ground breaking. Well, try to see this in the era that I live in: Two Iraq wars, Guantanamo Bay, high school shootings, religious fanatic, housing market, loans requires no income proof, a quarter of the population with no health insurance, state government defaults on its own debt, George W Bush, Sarah Palin... The list can go on. Did anyone say that Robert Frank's work look bleak? Which one?

In this book, I only see it as a typical documentary of "normal" Americans, of which we tends to ignore. People in that era has very negative comment toward his work, which they don’t seem to have against other documentary photographer of that era such as Henri Cartier-Bresson. Does Cartier-Bresson’s work make the subject appears in more positive light? Or does it work not concentrate on one nationality, therefore any negativity is less offensive if viewed individually?

I am not ready to discuss the composition and technique of the individual image. This is very strange, but I find it difficult to comment on somebody who is already very famous which we are supposed to learn from if not emulate. I rarely critique on technique level even for my own classmates.

Let’s shift focus a little bit. I live in Britain for a while, so what Britishness is like? Honestly, I can't say much apart from saying that people trying keep themselves to themselves, and everyone is at an arm length. Do we all think that the British are quiet, reserve and polite? Well, here is the work by Leo Maguire during the 2011 Joop Swart master class. His subject is dogging, meaning people engage in outdoor sexual act.  

The Brits? Surprising, isn't it? Here is the link:

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/photo/jsm2011leo-01?gallery=1982

I wonder what is the verdict of his work from the British people? Ground breaking? Offensive? Somebody pigeon-hole into a sub-culture and put the whole population looks in bad light? Personally, I see it not that far from Robert Frank’s work, except that, this is even more shocking when we have a more unity sense of Britishness.