Page 213 - The 60.Venice Biennial & MoMA issue of WOA Contemporary Art magazine

WORLD-CLASS ART

LIFE DANCES ON:
ROBERT FRANK IN DIALOGUE

MOMA ANNOUNCES MAJOR ROBERT FRANK EXHIBITION,
COINCIDING WITH THE ARTIST’S CENTENNIAL, OPENING
FALL 2024

The Museum of Modern Art announces Life Dances On: Robert
Frank in Dialogue, an exhibition that will provide new insights into
the interdisciplinary and lesser-known aspects of photographer
and filmmaker Robert Frank’s expansive career. On view from
September 15, 2024, to January 11, 2025, the exhibition will delve
into the six decades that followed Frank’s landmark photobook
The Americans (1958) until his death in 2019, highlighting his
perpetual experimentation and collaborations across various
mediums. Coinciding with the centennial of his birth and taking
Robert Frank. Cocksucker Blues. 1972. Gelatin silver print, 19 7/8 × 15 7/8" (50.5 ×
its name from the artist’s 1980 film, Life Dances On will explore 40.3 cm). The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation. © 2024 The June Leaf and
Frank’s artistic and personal dialogues with other artists and with Robert Frank Foundation
his communities. The exhibition will feature more than 200 objects,
including photographs, films, books, and archival materials, drawn “This exhibition offers visitors a fresh perspective on this beloved
from MoMA’s extensive collection alongside significant loans. Life and influential artist,” said Gallun. “The enormous impact of
Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue is organized by Lucy Gallun, Frank’s book The Americans meant that he is often remembered
Curator, with Kaitlin Booher, Newhall Fellow, and Casey Li, 12 as a solo photographer on a road trip, a Swiss artist making
Month Intern, Department of Photography. pictures of an America that he traversed as an outsider. And
yet, in the six decades that followed, Frank continually forged
Robert Frank. Fire Below–to the East America, Mabou. 1979. Gelatin silver print, 19 new paths in his work, often in direct artistic conversation with
3/16 × 22 13/16" (48.8 × 57.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the
artist, by exchange. © 2024 The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation others, and these contributions warrant closer attention. The
pictures, films, and books he made in these years are evidence
of Frank’s ceaseless creative exploration and observation of life,
at once searing and tender.”
Organized loosely chronologically, Life Dances On will focus
on the theme of dialogue in Frank’s work and reflect on the
significance of individuals who shaped his outlook. Frank’s own
words will be present throughout the exhibition - in the texts
he scrawled directly onto his photographic negatives, in the
spoken narrative accompanying his films, and in quotes woven
into the exhibition catalogue that will be published by MoMA in
conjunction with the exhibition. Also revealed throughout the
exhibition will be Frank’s innovation across multiple mediums,
from his first forays into filmmaking alongside other Beat
Generation artists, with films such as Pull My Daisy (1959), to
the artist’s books he called “visual diaries,” which he produced
almost yearly over the last decade of his life.

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