Being a long time fan of Robert Frank, I was more than excited to visit the Met. I had a lot of rave reviews from friends about how well laid out the images were but what I was most excited about was Frank's contact sheets of the film taken for "The Americans."
Never viewing an actually photograph of Robert Frank's but instead only knowing his work from collections in books had me a little worked about how viewing the images on the wall may change the body of work for me. I always found the series to be inspiring for its meticulous sequencing that can only really come from viewing a book. Every image is given space from the others by only including one photograph a page but at the same time, you are allowed to make connections to the other photographs in the series to create an emotion, or at best a narrative.
When entering the gallery, I was pleased they kept the images in the order. Through multiple rooms the walls are lined with the images acompanied with the number and even. sometimes, the wall text describing some history of the photograph or an attempt at putting words into Frank's mouth. These types of wall texts were the exhibits biggest downfall in my opinion. Understanding Robert Frank is the kind of photographer to have thought much of this out and indeed I have read a lot on HOW he ordered the images I did not find the curator's attempt on WHY he sequenced certian images together. At one point the wall text described a section of the series as being ordered because of the use of hands and feet in all of the photographs. Although these elements were in the images, I cannot help but think the curator was stepping boundrys.
I did noticed the images taken out of book form worked in an interesting way. The idea that you can see the images next to each other and you can not just focus on a single image. This did work well in conjunction with the idea of really laying out and illustrating the process and techniques used to create the series. I have to say though, viewing this series in book for the way, I think, someone should experience the body of work.
In the end I am excited and glad that I went to the exhibit, but not for the aspect of experiencing these images in it's truest sense but instead to get the idea of how they were created.
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