To mark the centenary of Robert Frank's birth in November, MoMA presents the first major retrospective of this iconic photographer and filmmaker, with more than 200 objects such as photographs, films, books and archival documents.

« I always make the same type of images. I look at the outside to try to look at the inside, to try to find something true, but maybe nothing is ever true. "In his sixty-year career, Robert Frank (1924-2019) redefined the iconography and aesthetics of still and moving images. Moreover, he transcended film photography and initiated a radical shift in the mid-20th century."
His groundbreaking book, *The Americans* (1958), featuring 83 photographs out of the more than 20,000 captured during his journey across the United States, remains a monumental, raw, and expressive work, as well as a source of inspiration for countless photographers and filmmakers. A melancholic and poetic wanderer, influenced by Walker Evans, he himself shaped the careers of Jonas Mekas, John Cassavetes, Jim Jarmusch, and others.

Today, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) offers new perspectives on his interdisciplinary art. The retrospective "Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue" sheds new light on the six decades following the publication of his seminal work, up to his death.

EXISTENTIAL SOCIAL OBSERVATIONS

More than 200 objects (photographs, films, visual journals, books, archival documents), accompanied by quotes and excerpts from interviews about his creative process, are thus exhibited in several spaces of the New York institution.
All these artifacts serve to underscore once again the importance of his close circle—people, both known and unknown, and the Beat community—who helped shape his unique vision and perpetual experimentation. While his images defied norms and overturned conventions, they primarily depicted, in a creative and unvarnished whole, American society, consumer culture, architecture, streets, and modern American landscapes.
The exhibition takes its name from his most personal film, Life Dances On (1980), which focuses on those who shared his life, including his daughter Andrea and his friend and collaborator Danny Seymour, both now deceased, against the backdrop of people on the streets of New York. In these intuitive moments, Robert Frank explores the feeling of loss. In 1994, he would also lose his son Pablo.

MULTIFORM EXPLORATIONS

The exhibition thus creates a dialogue between the artistic and the personal, the autobiographical and the experimental, of this eminent figure. It features his first short film, Pull My Daisy (1959), which became a cornerstone of avant-garde cinema, adapted from Jack Kerouac's play Beat Generation. It also includes his first feature film, Me and My Brother (1969), which blurred the lines between documentary and narrative scenes, starring Christopher Walken and Sam Shepard in his first role. And finally, True Story (2004), in which he narrates scenes filmed in his homes in New York and Nova Scotia (Canada), exploring the themes of memory and loss.
MoMA is also presenting Robert Frank's Scrapbook Footage, a multi-screen installation, in the Morita and Titus galleries. It brings together previously unseen video footage and films, compiled by Laura Israel, the photographer-filmmaker's longtime editor, in collaboration with artistic director Alex Bingham. This previously unseen material, digitized and restored, discovered after his death, comes from the archives of the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation.

This retrospective thus probes the quest of a man who has constantly sought to liberate the multiple possibilities of the photographic and filmic image, exploring his family and his encounters, loss and memory, traumas and life experiences.

LIFE DANCES ON: ROBERT FRANK IN DIALOGUE
FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 TO JANUARY 11, 2025 ROBERT FRANK'S SCRAPBOOK FOOTAGE
FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 TO MARCH 2025
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (MOMA) 11 WEST 53RD STREET, NEW YORK (UNITED STATES)
MOMA.ORG