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

" I always make the same kind 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 a career spanning sixty years, Robert Frank (1924-2019) redefined the iconography and aesthetics of the still and moving image. What's more, he transcended film reportage and initiated a radical change in the mid-twentieth century.
His groundbreaking book The Americans (1958), featuring 83 of the more than 20,000 photographs he captured on his journey across the United States, remains a monumental, raw and expressive work, as well as a source of inspiration for many photographers and filmmakers. A melancholy, poetic vagabond, the man who was influenced by Walker Evans has himself animated the careers of Jonas Mekas, John Cassavetes, Jim Jarmusch...

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

EXISTENTIAL SOCIAL OBSERVATIONS

More than 200 objects (photographs, films, visual diaries, books, archival documents), along with quotations and interview excerpts on his creative process, are on display in several areas of the New York institution.
All these artifacts re-emphasize the importance of his close circle, the people, known and unknown, and the Beat community, who helped shape his singular vision and perpetual experimentation. While his images challenged norms and upended conventions, above all they portrayed American society, consumer culture, architecture, the streets and modern American landscapes as a creative and unvarnished whole.
The exhibition takes its name from his most personal film, Life Dances On (1980), which focuses on those who shared his life, including his late daughter Andrea and his friend and collaborator Danny Seymour, against the backdrop of people on the streets of New York. In these intuitive moments, Robert Frank addresses the sense of loss. In 1994, he also lost his son Pablo.

MULTIFORM EXPLORATIONS

The exhibition brings together the artistic and the personal, the autobiographical and the experimental, in this eminent figure's work. It includes his first short film, Pull My Daisy (1959), which became a cornerstone of avant-garde cinema, adapted from Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation. But also his first feature, Me and My Brother (1969), which blurred the boundaries between documentary cinema and narrative scenes, starring Christopher Walken and Sam Shepard in his leading role. Or True Story (2004), a voice-over narration of scenes filmed in his homes in New York and Nova Scotia (Canada), exploring 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 and film footage, compiled by Laura Israel, the photographer-filmmaker's long-time editor, in collaboration with artistic director Alex Bingham. This previously unseen, digitized and restored material, discovered after his death, comes from the archives of the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation.

This retrospective probes the quest of a man who has never ceased to unleash the multiple possibilities of the photographic and filmic image, exploring his family and encounters, loss and memory, trauma 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 (USA)
MOMA.ORG