Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue
Installation view, Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from September 15, 2024, through January 11, 2025. Photo by Jonathan Dorado © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York
NEW YORK, The Museum of Modern Art presents Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue, an exhibition that provides 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 delves 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 the artist’s birth, and taking its name from his 1980 film, Life Dances On explores Frank’s artistic and personal dialogues with other artists and with his communities. The exhibition features more than 250 objects, including photographs, films, books, and archival materials, drawn from MoMA’s extensive collection alongside significant loans. Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue is organized by Lucy Gallun, Curator, with Kaitlin Booher, Newhall Fellow, and Casey Li, 12 Month Intern, Department of Photography.
Robert Frank. Sick of Goodby’s. 1978. Gelatin silver print, 21 15/16 × 12 11/16″ (55.8 × 32.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase. © 2024 The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation
“This exhibition offers visitors a fresh perspective on this beloved and influential artist,” said Gallun. “The enormous impact of Frank’s book The Americans meant that he is often remembered as a solo photographer on a road trip, a Swiss artist making pictures of an America that he traversed as an outsider. And yet, in the six decades that followed, Frank continually forged new paths in his work, often in direct artistic conversation with 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.”
Robert Frank. Cocksucker Blues. 1972. Gelatin silver print, 19 7/8 × 15 7/8″ (50.5 × 40.3 cm). The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation. © 2024 The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation
Organized loosely chronologically, Life Dances On focuses on the theme of dialogue in Frank’s work and reflects on the significance of individuals who shaped his outlook. Frank’s own words are 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 published by MoMA in conjunction with the exhibition. Also revealed throughout the exhibition is 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.
Robert Frank. Andrea. 1975. Five gelatin silver prints and ink on paper, 10 15/16 × 13 7/8″ (27.8 × 35.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, NY. Gift of the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation in honor of Clément Chéroux and Lucy Gallun. © 2024 The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation
By focusing on dialogue and experimentation, the exhibition explores such enduring subjects as artistic inspiration, family, partnership, loss, and memory through the lens of Frank’s own personal traumas and life experiences. Among the works presented in the exhibition is a selection of photographs drawn from Frank’s footage for his 1980 film Life Dances On. These works reflect on the significance of individuals who shaped Frank’s own outlook—in this case, his daughter Andrea and his friend and film collaborator Danny Seymour. Like much of his work, the film finds its setting in Frank’s own communities in New York City and in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where he and his wife, the artist June Leaf, moved in 1970. An abundance of material was loaned to the exhibition by the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation, including works from the artist’s archives that are shown publicly for the first time, as well as personal artifacts, correspondence, and book maquettes.
Robert Frank. Jack Kerouac. 1959. Gelatin silver print, 10 ⅞ x 8 5/16” (27.7 x 21.1 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank. © 2024 The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation
In conjunction with the exhibition, MoMA presents Robert Frank’s Scrapbook Footage, an installation in the Morita and Titus galleries, featuring Frank’s previously unseen film and video footage, designed by Frank’s longtime film editor, Laura Israel, and art director Alex Bingham. With the support of the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation, Israel and Bingham have crafted a multichannel installation from newly digitized and restored materials unearthed after Frank’s death. On view for the first time, this installation reveals Frank’s restless experimentation and offers an opportunity to encounter the central figures of his life and work in New York, Nova Scotia, and beyond. On the occasion of the exhibition, MoMA will also present a complete retrospective of Robert Frank’s films and videos—many of them newly restored by the Museum. Robert Frank’s Scrapbook Footage is organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, with Lucy Gallun, Curator, and Kaitlin Booher, Newhall Fellow, Department of Photography, and the accompanying retrospective of Robert Frank’s films and videos is organized by Siegel.
Installation view, Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from September 15, 2024, through January 11, 2025. Photo by Jonathan Dorado © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York
MoMA has been exhibiting Frank’s work since 1950, early in his career. In 1962, the Museum featured Frank’s work in a two-person exhibition alongside photographer Harry Callahan. Since then, the Museum has regularly collected and exhibited his work, and today the Museum’s collection includes over 200 of Frank’s photographs. That collection has been built through important gifts from Robert and Gayle Greenhill in 2013, and more recently, a promised gift to the Museum from Michael Jesselson, comprising a remarkable group of works, many of which are presented at MoMA for the first time in this exhibition. In 2015, the artist made an extraordinary gift of his complete film and video works, spanning the entirety of his career in filmmaking. MoMA’s Department of Film has since been engaged in a multiyear restoration project of these materials. Building upon this significant history with the Museum, Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue is the first solo exhibition of Robert Frank’s work at MoMA.
Robert Frank. James Baldwin. c. 1963. Gelatin silver print, 13 15/16 × 9 13/16″ (35.4 × 24.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist. © 2024 The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation
PUBLICATION:
The accompanying publication, edited by Gallun, features photographs, films, books, and archival materials, layered with quotes from Frank on his influences and process. Three scholarly essays, excerpts from previously unpublished video footage, and a rich visual chronology together explore Frank’s ceaseless creative exploration and observation of life. 192 pages, 150 illustrations. Hardcover, $60. ISBN: 978-1-63345-164-3. Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and available at MoMA stores and online at store.moma.org. Distributed to the trade through ARTBOOK|D.A.P. in the United States and Canada, and through Thames & Hudson in the rest of the world.
SPONSORSHIP:
Endowment.
Leadership support for the exhibition is provided by the Noel and Harriette Levine
Generous funding is provided by the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York. Major support for the publication is provided by Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder through The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. Generous funding is provided by the John Szarkowski Publications Fund.FILM SERIES: The Complete Robert Frank: Films and Videos, 1959–2017 November 20–December 11, 2024 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
In conjunction with the gallery exhibition Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue and the installation Robert Frank’s Scrapbook Footage, MoMA presents a complete retrospective of Robert Frank’s films and videos, many of them in new digital preservations and remasters, together with a modest selection of films relating to the artist and his circle of family, friends, and collaborators. Recognizing his uniquely important relationship with MoMA, Frank donated all of his unique film and video materials to its collection in 2015. These works span the entirety of Frank’s moving-image career, from his 1959 Beat psychodrama Pull My Daisy (co-directed by Alfred Leslie and starring the poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso; the artists Larry Rivers and Alice Neel; and the actress Delphine Seyrig; with narration by Jack Kerouac) to his 2008 video Fernando, a touching portrait of a Swiss artist friend, and Harry Smith at the Breslin Hotel, 1984 (2017).
Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film. Thanks to The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation, Peter Williamson, Laura Israel, and Nicholas Dawidoff.
Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.
Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black, with major funding from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
This exhibition opened September 15, 2024 and will be on view until January 11, 2025 at The Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with Life Dances On, MoMA also presents Robert Frank’s Scrapbook Footage from September 15, 2024, through March 2025, and The Complete Robert Frank: Films and Videos, 1959–2017 from November 20 through December 11, 2024.
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